In My Mother's Stead you make me whole
by thisisnotmybeautifulhouse
Summary: Why is he still alive? How could he even think to feel happy on this day, the anniversary of his mother's sacrifice?


**This is (very) loosely based on a scene from the _Once Upon a Time_ episode, _The Shepherd_.  
**

Voices in the hall rise and fall like the ebb and flow of the tide, washing over him, and he imagines that they also wash the undercurrent of sorrow and loss away, knowing that it is an impossible hope. The death of his mother hangs above him as would a specter, taunts, chokes, rebukes him. Why is he still alive? How could he even_ think_ to feel happy on this day, the anniversary of his mother's sacrifice?

Even as he jokes and laughs with the other new knights, all fresh and idealistic and ready to lay their lives down for the good of the kingdom (or at least for the chance of a night with whichever wench catches their eyes), he feels keenly the oppressive weight of his father's mourning, which daily exists like a curtain between them, and on this day feels like a stone wall.

He slips out into the hall, desperately seeking some air that is not tainted by sadness.

A presence approaches, warm and familiar and old, like a well-loved blanket. Sighing, he looks up to meet the kind eyes of the court physician, made softer by the knowledge of his young lord's silent suffering.

"Hello, Arthur. My congratulations on your knighthood, as well as your birthday." And coming from Gaius, it feels as though the man truly _means_ it, in a way that so many others do not. This gnarled old physician has known him from the time he was but a bump in his late mother's belly, and cared for him just as long.

Resting his head against the wall where he slumps, he hides away from the compassion he cannot afford to see; princes do not weep for what they will never know. And he always strives to be nothing less than the very image of a prince, though perhaps hiding away from the rest of the world is not the princely thing to do either. What does it matter? All most people see on this day is a ghost, regardless of any actions he might take, and social gaffs he might make.

But Gaius sees everything, sees him, Arthur. "Are you well, Sire?" And it is still so strange somehow, that his old friend, so much like a beloved uncle, occasionally uses his title now. Aged, yet still sharp eyes catch the uncomfortable shifting which the honorific inspires, and he raises a gently inquiring eyebrow, normally so uncompromising and intolerant of folly.

"You, of all people Gaius, know what today is." He is simply too weary of the courtly games and thinly veiled condolences to pretend with one who knows him so well, yet loves him still.

"Indeed, I do, Sire." Arthur manages not to twitch this time, but only just. "Which is why I have brought you this." He watches as Gaius removes an envelope from his robes, bearing a seal he recognizes with a jolt as the seal of his mother's house. He reaches for it without consciously making the decision to move, drawn to this tangible remnant of the woman who bore him as a starving man is to a crust of bread.

"Why do you have this?" he breathes in shaky awe, finally giving up the battle to remain stoic in the face of this awful day, so far removed from the joyous occasions his father's ward pretends she does not enjoy every year as the young men of the kingdom dote on her and hang onto her every word, and Uther looks indulgently on.

"Your mother entrusted this to me to give to you on your sixteenth birthday." Arthur's eyes snap up at this to meet the court physician's, holding a thousand questions. _She couldn't have known… could she?_

Gaius nods gravely in answer to the thoughts Arthur cannot bring himself to voice. Because if she had known she would die, that she would not survive her delivery… His father had never known. This much, Arthur could see with the cold certainty of one who knows he comes second in his parent's heart; why else would his father continue to dwell so upon his mother's death, rather than embracing his son's life?

He flees to the royal kennel and, once there, tosses a gold coin at the handler for his trouble when he backs away with the assurance that no one will disturb him whilst he is here. Arthur does not know, nor does he care, what excuse the always kind elderly man will provide for barring entrance, and he can only bring himself to feel gratitude for his actions in a remote, muted sort of way, far more aware of the insistent stinging of his eyes and knot in his throat, coupled with the knife in his heart.

He collapses among the dogs which have been his loyal friends since he was old enough to walk here, holding onto the apron of his nurse, the heavy envelop in his hands feeling as though it weighs a thousand pounds as he opens it with fingers made clumsy with shaking hands.

Tears hit the page at the words, "My dearest son," even as something small and metallic falls out into his lap. Ignoring the strange burden in favor of seeing more of his mother's beautiful handwriting, he reads on, and realizes that his are not the only tears marring the neat lines and flourishes of her words.

_"My dearest son,_

_As I sit here in my favorite chair in the library, over by the poetry section, I can feel you moving inside me, and it fills me with a bittersweet joy, because I know that I am not long for this world. My mother's side of the family have long been known for their intuition, something which I hope you shall inherit, and mine tells me strongly now that there is precious little time left for me.__  
__Words cannot express how dearly I wish to be there for your first smile, your first laugh, your first word. I long to kiss every scraped knee and soothe every small heartbreak, to know of every pitfall and every triumph. I wish to tease you about your first kiss, your first love. I want to be there for your wedding day and for the birth of your own children. But I know that I will not.__  
__It is every mother's dream that her child will find someone to share his life with, to be there when the time for a mother's guidance and comfort is past. That is why I give to you this sigil, which has been passed down through my family for generations as a token to help you to find the other half of your soul. Carry this sigil with you always, my son, and when the time is right, you will know to whom it belongs.__  
__Even if you cannot see me, even if you never know the warmth and safety of my embrace, wherever you go, I will be with you. If you know nothing, if everything in this world seems uncertain and strange, know that I love you, and that carrying you and protecting you has been a wondrous gift that I will cherish for eternity.__  
__Hold fast to love and the beauty that is in everything, my son, my little Arthur, and hope will find you, even in the darkest moments._

_All my love,__  
__Your mother"_

He knows that tears stream down his face and lets them, eyes searching through his mother's words of love and protection over and over again, hearing them in his mind long after the water in his eyes has made him blind to the ink on the parchment. He thinks distantly that it is fitting, somehow, that his tears now mix with his mother's, creating something that is a little bit of them both. Sniffling, he takes in the crisp autumn air and thinks that he can feel her, just a little bit, in the spicy breeze that ruffles his hair and raises goosebumps along his exposed skin.

Several years later, he stares at the foolish peasant who thought to teach a lesson to a prince, and his mother's intuition strikes for the first time, "There's something about you, Merlin," and he is not at all surprised when the boy becomes a permanent fixture in his life.

Almost ten years after receiving his mother's letter, which has become worn and wrinkled with many nights spent rereading the words which are written on his heart, he sits by a quietly crackling fire and speaks in hushed tones to a man who seems to embody hope, if hope were to have large ears and intensely warm and open blue eyes and awkwardly beautiful limbs, and he takes out his mother's sigil.

Though he has known for quite some time – perhaps even since that first day, perhaps while he struggled for his life in the cave which held the vital yellow flower, perhaps as he helped the other boy with his armor in a tiny house in an overlooked village, perhaps while sitting across from him at a table and thinking, _Surely this is the best way to die, in the presence of the one person I might someday call friend, for the people I love_, and then drinking the liquid from both goblets – he has waited, believing in his mother's promise that he will know the right time.

That time is now. He rubs his thumb over the beautiful reminder of his mother's love, and then hands it to the one for which it was always intended."This belonged to my mother."


End file.
